It's been radio silence here on the blog, but our contributors are working diligently in the background on their pieces! We've got the last progress check coming up in just over a week, and still on track to wrap up this phase by the end of May. At that point it's production design time, which I'm personally quite excited about.

But in the meantime we've been discussing some merch ideas and wanted to open it up to a larger audience. So please let us know what youre most interested in. Your input will really help us out!

Art has been submitted and everything is looking fantastic. It's really such a great collection of pieces, and all of our contributors blew it out of the park!

What comes next is pre-production. We're putting together the design elements of the calendar itself, writing up some additional info and building a credits page. Then it's off to print! Meanwhile, I've already done a couple rounds of proofing and have the sticker sheets on order, so those will actually be in hand in a week or so. Things are moving fast at this point!

Something important I want to mention is that we are not doing pre-orders for this first printing, and the reason is that I'd like to have the physical item to assess for quality and take photos of before any listing goes up. This will help me determine a fair price. As I'm new to calendar creation, I want to be 100% confident in what we are offering before I even ask to take anyone's hard earned money.

That said, I know the New Gods and overall Fourth World fandom is quite small, so we are anticipating up to about 24 interested buyers (including our 7 calendar contributors who will receive theirs complimentary). That is a low number of inventory, but again since this is our first rodeo I do not want to over promise and under deliver, or order so much that we're in the hole money-wise. So providing this transparency up front is very important to me.

If there for some reason is a shocking number of people who would like to buy the calendar or stickers, we will have a second printing. Info on that will likely be gathered via the shop website, but to-be-determined until we actually get the listings up.

So things are moving along and falling into place due to everyone's hard work, and I've been giving a lot of thought to logistics. We're really in a good place with this, and I hope everyone is as excited as I am!

Hello everyone!

I had meant to get this update out yesterday, as October 13th marks the 55th anniversary of Darkseid's very first appearance in Jack Kirby's run of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #134. So I figured a great way to celebrate this auspicious date would be to wrap up our calendar project with a donation and a little behind the scenes on where we landed with everything.

So first, some numbers.

Income after fees, taxes and shipping costs - $300.61

Expenses for supplies and printing - $312.51

Calendars sold: 16

Calendars for contributors: 8

Remaining calendars unsold: 3

As you can see, our profit margin was extremely thin. And for full transparency, this is after the help of several of our artists who chose to pitch in some money to ease the shipping burden for the rest of the crew. If we had sold the last three calendars, we would have seen a profit, but unfortunately at this time that is not the case.

But not to worry! From before the project even started, I have been aware that it would be a realistic probability that we would lose money on this endeavor. I still felt it would be worth doing, and I stand by the collection of art that we made! After all, this project was never about the profits. I know this update makes it seem like money was the main focus, but really my whole motivation was to get a group of fans together and bring something new into the world about a comic we love.

Another thing that was always part of the plan was to make a minimum donation no matter what, so I'm pleased to share that we are still supporting the Jack Kirby Museum digital collection with a $50 donation.

As mentioned, we do have three calendar packs available. They include both sticker sheets, and will be up for purchase until November 15. After that, we will close up the shop. I'm undecided about offering them in January at a discount, so let me know if that might be worth it to someone out there. And we will have a free pdf available in the beginning of the year.

The last order of business is to formally announce that artists may post and share their artwork. This is not a requirement, but for anyone who contributed, you're welcome to tag the blog! Thank you so much for being part of this project. I'm immensely proud of everyone's work. The quality you brought to the table far exceeded anything I could envision.

So again, please let me know if you are being charged more for the calendars as part of tax/VAT/customs. Thank you.

With that, it's a good time for a little update and some housekeeping.

We do still have three calendars left for purchase, but since sales have slowed down I'd like our artists to be able to post sooner than later. So instead of waiting until mid-November, everyone who would like to post their art can do so on or after October 13.

On that day I will also put together a high level summary of sales, and share the donation amount. I think some zines do this and some don't. To me it seems like a nice thing to make transparent.

We will still keep sales for the remaining calendars open through November 15, as planned, which means any additional revenue will be donated at that time. Then in January I would like to make a digital version available for maybe a month.